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Japan Dev
Curated dev job board · Tokyo · bootstrapped, 2-person
👤 Eric Turner (American dev who moved to Tokyo, worked at Mercari—lived the foreign-hire pain. Wife Manami handled Japanese law and language.)🌐 site𝕏LinkedIn

A husband-and-wife team built a pay-on-hire job board for foreign devs in Japan. Zero revenue year one, then $62K/mo.

Will it work? · our read
Paid on hires. The pay-on-hire model wins trust but leans on honesty—companies must report hires, patched by late fees. And the whole thing is capped to Japan's foreign-dev niche.
01How the money moves
Curate top Japan tech roles; reject most companies
SEO + a 10,000-dev newsletter pull in candidates
Company hires -> Japan Dev bills a success fee
02The numbers
$62K/mo
revenue, July 2022
founder
about 150
companies under contract
founder
250K
monthly page views
founder
All figures founder-disclosed on Indie Hackers and his own blog (2022). Revenue was $0 for the entire first year. Indie Hackers
$62K/mo, founder-disclosed (July 2022).
03Weight class — CENTStap an axis
ControlEntryNeedTimeScale
Control High
Owns its SEO rankings, a 10,000-dev email list, and direct company relationships—not renting someone else's audience.
04The key move
Bill only on hires
Most job boards bill $300 per post, up front, filled or not. Eric flipped it: listing is free—a company pays a success fee only on a hire, cheaper than recruiters' 30-35%. No upfront risk, companies pile in.
fact
The counter-intuitive move
Pay-on-hire only works if companies report their hires—many won't. Eric patched the leak with a contract late fee that grows every month a hire goes unreported.
fact
05Where the moat is
The moat isn't the board—it's what took years to stack:
Years of SEO ranking 'tech jobs in Japan'Owns a 10,000-dev email listCurated trust: rejects most companiesInsider: American dev + Japanese-native wife
06How it diesmedium confidence
It dies if Google reshuffles: 250K views are mostly organic, and one algo change starves it. It can't travel—the model is welded to Japan's foreign-dev niche, so growth means cold-starting a new country. our read
Show evidence · counter
Evidence: Traffic is overwhelmingly organic SEO (about 250K views/mo) and revenue is single-country—both founder-stated.
Counter: A 10K owned email list and years of brand trust cushion any algorithm hit, and the niche comfortably supports a two-person team.
07Against rivals
Japan DevPay per hire
TokyoDevPost fee
WantedlySubscription
LinkedIn JobsAds + subs
Japan Dev is the smallest but the only board built solely for foreign devs chasing Japan roles—curated, not a firehose. Rival pricing is approximate. our read
08Who uses it
Foreign devs eyeing JapanEngineers with no JapaneseTokyo startups hiring globallyMercari, Indeed Japan
Would it work for you?
Where are you both the customer and the insider?
Eric won by being both the customer and a local insider. Your version? We don't score you — you answer.
🚀Use it as a launchpada prompt for your own AI
Copy → paste into your AI → then develop it freely in the conversation.
You are a sharp, honest startup strategist. Use the proven case below as a launchpad for MY idea — help me find my own angle, not copy it. <my_profile> Domain I know: [your domain] My unfair advantage (access/audience): [your edge] Interests: [your interests] Resources & goal: [your resources] · [your goal] </my_profile> <case name="Japan Dev" model="marketplace"> What it does: A curated job board matching foreign developers with Japanese tech companies, billed only when a hire happens. Why it won (moat): Years of SEO ranking, a 10K owned email list, curated trust, and a founder who is both customer and local insider. Weakest axis (CENTS): Revenue is single-country and traffic is mostly organic SEO—one Google shift or a saturated niche caps growth. How it could die: A Google algorithm hit starves the organic funnel, or the Japan-only niche saturates with no easy path to new markets. </case> <task> Be a skeptical operator, not a cheerleader. No generic startup platitudes. If my angle is weak, say so plainly. First, a reality check: markets like this mostly fail. State the honest base rate (how crowded/hard is this?) and the ONE specific thing that would have to be true for ME to be the exception — grounded in my profile above. Then a compact table: - Fit — does this pattern suit my edge, or fight my gap? - Angle — my sharpest differentiation vs Japan Dev (concrete, not "better UX") - Distribution — exactly where my first 100 users come from (this is the hardest part — be specific, not "content marketing") - Risk — its "how it dies" (above) in MY situation Finish with one line: "The single thing to do next." Use only the facts above; if data is thin, say so — never invent numbers. Then stay with me and go deeper on whatever I ask — tech stack, rough cost & time, the smallest MVP to test, pricing, or timing. </task>
✓ Copied — paste into your AI
👤Placeholders like [your domain] auto-fill from your profile — example values for now.Set up profile →
Sourcesupdated · daily
Revenue of $62,197 in one month (July 2022) is first-party: Eric posted it on Indie Hackers and detailed it on his own blog, so independently confirmed, tagged Stated. The exact per-hire success fee is not public—he only says it undercuts recruiters' 30-35%, so I state no number. "About 150 companies" and 250K monthly pageviews are his figures. A later podcast cites about $80K/mo, but I anchored on the precise, sourced $62K. The zero-revenue first year is documented, not invented; no drama fabricated. We never score you.